Charles Edward Wilson

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Charles Edward Wilson takes the oath of office before Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson as Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization . In the middle, US President Harry S. Truman . White House , Oval Office , December 21, 1950.

Charles Edward Wilson (born November 18, 1886 in New York City , †  January 3, 1972 in Bronxville (New York) ) was an American economic manager, two-time president of General Electric (GE) and an influential politician and administrator among three US presidents .

General Electric careers

Old neon advertising for General Electric household appliances

Charles Edward Wilson grew up in a simple family on New York's Lower West Side. When his father died in 1898, he was 12 years old. He dropped out of school and made a living for his mother and himself as an office boy. He came to General Electric when his employer, Sprague Electrical Works , was acquired by GE. He became a factory worker and received nightly training in accounting, engineering, and mathematics. At the age of 21 he was deputy plant manager.

In 1923 he was transferred to Bridgeport (Connecticut) where he worked as a managing engineer in the production of the household appliance plant. In 1928 he was promoted to assistant to the vice president of the commercial department, his first position with responsibility for the entire group. As early as 1930 he himself became Vice President responsible for all household appliances. In this time introducing falls from appliances such as juicers , stand mixers or Dorchester - coffee . He took on a newly created position as Executive Vice President in December 1937. His steep career with the largest corporation in the USA culminated in the office of President, in which he succeeded Gerard Swope (1872-1957) in 1940 . He carried out this activity successfully for two and a half years. In 1942, GE introduced the first jet engine, developed in less than a year. GE radar technology was very important to the Allies during World War II .

War Production Board

In December 1941, the United States entered World War II . Badly prepared at first, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt set up the War Production Board (WPB) as a coordinating body, which achieved great success in converting the industry from peacetime to war production. Conductor was Donald M. Nelson . At the request of the Democratic President, Republican Wilson assumed the vice-chairmanship of this body. Gerard Swope returned from retirement to lead the company again. Wilson, although referred to as the "strong man of the WPB" by Time Magazine , felt increasingly uncomfortable in this position, in which he had to struggle with intrigues, which were also based on the fact that there were in fact two equal leaders. From the end of 1943 he tried several times to be recalled from the commission. Roosevelt asked him to remain in office until the victory over Germany. In December 1944, Wilson finally resigned. Also in 1944, Julias A. Krug was succeeded by Donald Nelson as chairman.

In 1945, Wilson took over the presidency of GE again and remained in that office until 1950. During his tenure, the General Electric J47 jet engine, which was the most popular at the time, was introduced as well as the first refrigerator with a separate freezer compartment (1947) and an electric oven set for restaurants and snack bars in the same year.

Truman Commission for Civil Rights

Roosevelt's successor in office, President Harry S. Truman , appointed Wilson to chair a temporary commission on civil rights in December 1946 . The President's Committee on Civil Rights should propose measures and new laws to protect and improve the civil rights of all US citizens. The commission consisted of 15 members, including the late President's son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. In December 1947, she submitted a 178-page report entitled "To Secure These Rights" on time. It is a "detailed and undisguised call for civil rights legislation" and thus also one of the foundations for the abolition of racial segregation in 1964 by the later President Lyndon B. Johnson .

Head of Defense Production Administration

Replacement of a General Electric J47 engine on an F-86A Saber fighter aircraft in Korea (1951)

After the end of World War II, President Truman embarked on a major defense reorganization. As part of this reorganization in 1947 from the former were war (responsible for Army and Air Force) and Department of the Navy , a new Ministry of Defense established Department of Defense (DOD) is formed and new agencies: the National Security Council (NSC), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ) and the National Security Resources Board (NSRB). The DOD should now be responsible for military operations and the NSRB for coordination with business. However, there were delimitation problems between these authorities.

When the long simmering Korean conflict culminated in open war on June 25, 1950 , the NRSB was initially responsible, as intended, for controlling prices, wages and rationing rare raw materials. As a result, however, there were some supply bottlenecks, combined with hamster purchases and at times massive inflation . The NRSB appeared unable to prevent the imminent collapse of the economy while running accelerated armaments programs. In this situation Truman was forced to declare a national emergency on December 16, 1950; At the same time, he informed about a new authority, the Office of Defense Mobilization (ODM, literally "Office for Defense Mobilization ") , which he had previously set up by executive order , based on the model of the WPB in World War II. He proposed the chairmanship to Charles E. Wilson. He had accepted with the proviso that there was clear leadership and that the authority would be directly subordinate to the President. In fact, that made him the most powerful man in the state after the president with broader powers than James F. Byrnes , head of the Office of Economic Stabilization (OES) with similar responsibilities, had been given in 1942. Wilson subsequently gave up all of his positions in business.

A reorganization followed in which all positions that had to do with economic mobilization were grouped under the ODM. The resulting reshuffles led to disputes with the trade unions, which subsequently refused to cooperate. In 1951, the US spent US $ 1 billion a week on war materials, coordinated by the ODM.

The ODM was finally able to propose less far-reaching measures than the WPB before; however, the limitations were palpable. Wilson was successful but resigned on March 31, 1952 in protest over Truman's wage policy. This was preceded by a bitter labor dispute in the steel industry . Truman had tried to mediate with the aim of preventing a strike in a war-important area. The responsible office was the Wage Stabilization Board (WSB, wage stabilization authority), a department of the ODM. In March 1952 this proposed an increase in hourly wages by 16.5 cents. The steel companies only wanted to agree to this if the government guaranteed higher prices in return. The Congress rejected any pay rise and tried to force the workers by law to work. When no agreement could be reached in the wage dispute by April 1952, Truman ordered the government to supervise the steelworks, in effect nationalization. On the other hand, the disempowered companies went to court and obtained justice in June 1952 before the Supreme Court . The result was a strike that lasted 53 days. In the end, the USWA union pushed through its essential demands.

After an interim management, Truman only appointed Henry H. Fowler as Wilson's successor on September 8, 1952 . In late 1952, Congress stripped most of its powers from the Wage Stabilization Board. In 1958, the ODM was merged with other authorities to form the Office of Defense and Civilian Mobilization (ODCM).

WR Grace & Co.

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After his resignation, Wilson briefly returned to General Electric and then took over the chairmanship of the board of directors of the chemical company W. R. Grace & Co. In 1956 he retired.

family

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Charles Edward Wilson was married. The couple had an adopted daughter, Margaret.

Next life

Wilson largely withdrew into private life in retirement. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower had the idea for a cultural student exchange program and invited to a conference in the White House on September 11, 1956, which was also attended by Bob Hope and Walt Disney . As a result, Wilson became the first chairman of the People-to-People Foundation, which aims to promote international friendship and understanding. The organization still exists today. Since 2002 she has organized the PTPI World Youth Forum . There are branches in Berlin and Cairo .

John G. Forrest wrote in the New York Times : "Charles Wilson is a great man by any measure: physical, moral or mental."

Charles Edward Wilson died at the age of 85.

membership

In 1944, Wilson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Quotes

  • “It took me forty years to work my way up to President of General Electric and only forty seconds to leave that post. But the devil was going on and I had to do something about it. "
  • "I confess that I am an incurable but realistic optimist about America's strength and productivity."

Trivia

In public, Charles Edward Wilson was nicknamed Electric Charlie , probably to better distinguish him from another top manager: Engine Charlie ("Motoren-Charley") Charles E. Wilson (1890–1961); whose "E." stands for "Erwin". Cast Iron Charlie ("Gusseisen-Charley") was the nickname of the Ford manager Charles E. Sorensen (1881–1968).

Remarks

  1. ↑ Time Magazine, where on September 4, 1944, under the title "Dear Charlie", his third request for resignation was reported.
  2. ↑ Members of the President's Committee on Civil Rights were reported to include: Charles E. Wilson (Chair), Sadie T. Alexander, James B. Carey, John S. Dickey, Morris L. Ernst, Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn, Dr. Frank P. Graham, Reverend Francis J. Haas, Charles Luckman, Francis P. Matthews, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., Reverend Henry Knox Sherrill, Boris Shishkin, Dorothy Rogers Tilly, Channing H. Tobias.
  3. ↑ This analysis was taken over from the article Harry S. Truman ; the source used there, Christof Mauch: Die American President CH Beck Munich ISBN 978-3-406-58742-9 , p. 332, is not available here.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Die Zeit No. 20/1951: Electric Charley
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h General Electric Web Site: Past Leaders: Charles Edward Wilson
  3. ^ A b General Electric Web Site: History 1935-1945
  4. ↑ Time Magazine of September 4, 1944: "Dear Charlie"
  5. ↑ General Electric Web Site: History 1946-1956
  6. ^ Truman Library: To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President's Committee on Civil Rights ; full report
  7. ↑ a b c d millercenter.org: American President A Reference Resource
  8. ↑ PTPI World Youth Forum
  9. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1900-1949 ( PDF ). Retrieved October 8, 2015

literature

  • President's Committee on Civil Rights: To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President's Committee on Civil Rights . GPO, Washington 1947 ( online )
  • Charles Edward Wilson , in: Internationales Biographisches Archiv 30/1952 of July 14, 1952, in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  • Corporate Profile, WR Grace & Co. In: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry , July 1955, pp. 630 f. doi : 10.1021 / jf60053a619
  • Stanley Sandler (Ed.): The Korean War. To Encyclopedia . Garland, 1995, p. 357 f.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Charles Edward
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Electric Charlie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American businessman and politician
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , New York
DATE OF DEATH 3rd January 1972
Place of death Bronxville (New York)